Monday, 1 August 2016

Oh, the food in Krakow

Geoff and I spent 4 lovely nights in Krakow at the end of July,
relaxing in the beautiful city, eating delicious food and soaking up the
sunshine. We rented a studio apartment, close to the centre of the old
city and about 10 minutes walk from Kazmierz (the old Jewish quarter)
and we explored our surrounds from there.

The
most important part of any holiday is the food, and we were not
disappointed by any of our choices. We were bemoaning that we were
running out of meals, and wanted to try more places, and return to those
that we had already enjoyed.

Surprisingly
we had some delicious sushi. I say surprisingly, as Krakow is as far
inland as possible in Poland and I didn’t see any Japanese people
anywhere, so I’d be interested to understand the connection there. We
had onigiri from a stand in a park, and tempura maki in Schwer Judah (a
popular food truck area).

We
also had potatoes in almost every way imaginable, and enjoyed them
all. Chimera, a salad bar restaurant just off the main square, was a
great lunch option with 4 ‘salads’ for about £3. The salad choices
included quiches, cooked vegetables, some seafood and some dishes I’d
normally consider a salad.

On
the traditional front, we ate pierogi at a little restaurant where the
ladies behind the counter fulfilled all the stereotypes – short, round,
in traditional dress, wearing kerchiefs over their hair and very smiley –
and served us mushroom and cabbage pierogi that was amazing, and cheese
pierogi that could have helpfully have been marked as ‘dessert’, but we
enjoyed them regardless. And from another Krakow tradition, we ate
hummus, and drank Israeli wine – too sweet, won’t try that again.

And we
ate bagels. And the Krakow version of a bagel, called an Obwarzanek Krakowski

Chimney
cakes were a revelation, like long hollow donuts, with fillings on the
inside of the tubes. The caramel and almond filling just edged out the
peanut butter filling to my mind. (Originally from the Hungarian
speaking region of Romania, these cakes are a great example of free
movement across Europe).

We
shopped at the local food market as well, and Geoff enjoyed the variety
of smoked pork products on offer, and I gorged on the bountiful
raspberries.

More on the coffee in another post (trust me, it’s worthy of its own missive).